Samsung exec: Tizen phone finally hitting shelves this summer

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After being shut down last year by DoCoMo and Orange, Samsung is finally ready to launch a Tizen phone.

Samsung’s own mobile OS has been struggling to enter the market in any serious way for a little while now, despite appearing to be far more developed than Android or iOS were when they launched. The time has come for Samsung to pull the trigger and get Tizen out in the world on something other than their Gear smartwatches and fitness trackers, but the company is well aware of just how hard it will have to work in order to achieve any kind of market penetration. More importantly, they seem aware that keeping Tizen in the market will mean it has to account for at least 15% of all smartphones that Samsung ships.

There aren’t many details about this first Tizen phone, only that it is expected to be a high-end model to be released in markets where Samsung’s Android phones have either been unsuccessful or not worth supporting from a financial standpoint. This phone is expected to be followed immediately by a second budget-focused Tizen phone in those same markets.

Tizen 2.0

Samsung currently has no public plans to bring Tizen into markets where the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3 have already proves successful, but there’s plenty of room for Samsung to move around once Tizen is actually on the market.

When this phone finally does come to market, Samsung will have the opportunity to create a situation where they control the entire ecosystem. The sales from hardware, software, app development, and accessories will all go through Samsung, allowing them a chance at the kind of ecosystem that Apple currently has.

The open source nature of Tizen combined with the growing app store they maintain will be a powerful force moving forward for Tizen, and with simple tools that allow developers to turn Android apps into Tizen apps it will only get easier for the platform to be supported. All they need now is for the phone to actually hit shelves, and to convince users that t he switch from iOS or Android wouldn’t be that hard.